


By Andraste's Grace

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Herald's Rest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Has anyone else noticed <a href="http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/131754917028/lavellanpls-hanging-out-outside-the-tavern">the sign outside the Herald's Rest tavern?</a></p><p>Lavellan is not a fan of their depiction of her. She resolves to change it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Andraste's Grace

“What the fuck is _this?_ ” Lavellan planted herself outside the Herald’s Rest, hand furiously anchored to her hip, and pointed an accusing finger to the tavern sign. “Is this supposed to be me?” The art in question depicted a haloed Andraste, backlit by heavenly light, with a veiled figure cradled in her arms. A veiled figure whom Lavellan recently noticed possessed exactly one bright, glowing, green hand. “Is Andraste _carrying_ me? On my own tavern sign?”

Dorian gazed up at the display with a dubious stare. “It does rather bear a resemblance, doesn’t it?” He could only shrug. “Well, I suppose the popular rumor _is_ that she ushered you out of the Fade.”

“I ushered _myself_ out of the Fade,” she argued, “and I sure as fuck wasn’t wearing a sheet.”

“Probably explains the name, though. Look, there you are.” He nodded to the offending figure. “Resting.”

Apparently Lilith didn’t find that bit as clever as Dorian did. Her frown grew somehow deeper. “It looks like I’m dead.”

“Perhaps it’s an especially _deep_ rest.”

“The anchor’s not even on the right hand,” she complained, and managed to look far too deeply wounded at the discrepancy. “And why am I in a _sheet?_ Am I really dead? Is that what they think happened?”

“Maybe you’re just very tired?”

Lilith gave a furious huff. “You know, in reality it was a lot harder than that. I would have liked very much for a giant glowing woman to pick me up and carry me back to this plane of existence while I caught a quick nap, but. Alas. I sort of just had to run really fast.”

“A bit ironic, isn’t it? A Dalish elf being hoisted around by Andraste?”

“I don’t know if ‘ironic’ really describes it.” She crossed her arms, critical glare narrowing. “Honestly, the more I think about it, this just seems offensive.”

“Not that I’m any sort of expert on Dalish elves, but I was under the impression they had their own bunch of gods.”

“They do,” she agreed. “A whole bunch of ‘em. You’d think it’d be pretty easy to paint a god I actually pray to.”

“Lilith,” Dorian gently reminded, “I have never once seen you pray.”

“Of course not, but that’s not the point,” she dismissed. “Now it’s just the principle of the matter. No offense, but Chantry-going Andrastians were sort of the ones who, you know, genocide-d the elves. _My elves,_ specifically. I mean, _someone_ must have considered how insensitive this could be, right?”

“Ah, yes, that pesky Exalted March of the Dales… Probably not their best moment.”

Lilith turned her glare back to the sign, and Dorian caught a familiar, terrible expression flash across her face. The cold, determined gleam seen often in the glassy black eyes of attacking bears and, coincidentally, also the look a certain silver-haired Herald got on her face shortly before executing a Very Bad Idea.

As if on cue came the announcement, “I don’t like it,” followed up by the hushed command, “Quick; boost me up.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Boost me,” she repeated. “I know it’s hard to tell on account of how big my personality is, but I’m actually a very small person, Dorian. As evidenced here by my visible lack of height. And while I can still do many of the same activities as the vertically blessed, I cannot, sadly, reach tavern signs. I’m short, is what I’m saying. So. Assistance?”

“I’m quite aware of _that_. I mean what do you plan on doing up there?”

“Fixing it,” she decided. “Here, I think I can reach it if I get on your shoulders…”

“Has no one invented _ladders_ yet in Fereldan?”

“No time,” she insisted. “Come on, boost me. It’s a matter of _principle,_ Dorian! Of integrity! Personal freedom! Of refusing to be complicit in our own oppression! This is bigger than just a sign; this is an act of _justice_. We-”

“You’re vandalizing your own tavern sign,” he translated.

“It’s not technically vandalizing if it’s mine.”

In the end she offered to buy him a drink, and thus with grudging compliance he found himself keeping lookout while a hellbent elf scaled him like a lattice wall in Orlais. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, shifting to keep balance, “but you are much heavier than I thought you’d be.”

“I carry around a war hammer bigger than my body. I am roughly 80% muscle at this point.”

Dorian had to take a wavering step to keep them both from tilting into a freefall. “Is the other 20% needless defiance?”

“And organs, probably.” When she finally gained a semblance of stability Lavellan carefully reached to slip a knife from her pocket. “Now I’m going to need you to hold steady for this.”

“Why do you have a _knife?_ ” he hissed. “Since when do you casually carry _knives_ around?”

“For fixing stupid tavern signs, now hold still, will you?” Then with one hand anchored to the signboard, she began carving. The whole ordeal took less than two minutes. Before long Dorian felt the weight on his shoulders shift.

“There,” Lilith breathlessly announced. “Fixed.”

She clambered back to the ground with the grace of a very small druffalo, and Dorian was finally able to step back and witness their generous correction. True to form, there above them stood a haloed Andraste, backlit by heavenly light, with a veiled figure cradled in her arms. And gripped in the figure’s glowing hand, deftly carved into the wood: a half-empty bottle of wine.

Dorian regarded it with a quirked brow. “You gave yourself a drink?”

“Well I don’t want her carrying me out of the _Fade;_ that’s a bit insulting on my part, isn’t it?” She looked up at her handiwork with a shrug. “Now it just looks like she’s trying to put my drunk ass to bed. Which a., gives the blanket an actual purpose, and b., is way more helpful to me than divine intervention.”

“Probably more accurate, too,” Dorian remarked. “It’s only by Andraste’s grace you ever make it back to your room.”

Lilith nodded sagely beside him, arms crossed in triumph. “ _Much_ less offensive this way.”

“Speaking of which, I believe there was promise of very expensive wine?”

“There was,” she agreed. “And who knows? With all the help she’s been, maybe Andraste will be kind enough to pick my tab up, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> lilith what would your parents say


End file.
